


The Mechanical Affairs

by chantefable



Series: The Alla Prima Collection [4]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Ambiguous Relationships, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Polyamory, Romance, Slow Burn, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-27
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2018-04-28 12:04:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 12,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5090048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chantefable/pseuds/chantefable
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Love is not looking at each other but looking in the same direction.</p><p>Gaby and Illya are enamoured of each other, and Napoleon is very much taken with Illya, Gaby is rather taken with Napoleon, and Illya is quite taken with Napoleon as well. So it all works out to everybody’s satisfaction eventually.</p><p>(A collection of episodic vignettes in the same continuity about Gaby and her relationship with Illya, and their relationship with Napoleon.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. bees to the honey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Illya Kuryakin demonstrates his honeypot skills, to critical acclaim.

In Krakow, Illya walks up to a man who is just as tall and fair-haired as he is, and then he looks into the man’s eyes. 

That’s it, contact established, the mission is a go. 

The man’s eyes are a different shade of blue but they are suddenly burning with as much interest as Illya discreetly radiates when he calls himself Volodya and keeps up a steady stream of cheerful chatter. Illya’s body language is open; his face maintains an exquisite, artful expression that is a perfect combination of brash and bashful. Napoleon could never pull off something like that. Illya is not just being a consummate professional about this honeypot mission: he is talented.

He’s so good at this that the handler and the pragmatist in Gaby insist they use Illya in this capacity more often from now on.

But something that she cannot quite name, something dark and jealous, like a disease given by the devil, snarls and snaps within the confines of Gaby’s chest and wants her to drag Illyusha away and fuck him into the shabby mattress of the Krakow student hostel where they’re keeping their base for the duration of this job.

Watching Illya reel the mark in – the other man is so gone on him, hook, line, and sinker – is both torturous and arousing. Napoleon did warn her. He does his best not to smirk too much now, sitting next to her and drawing shapes in the mist of condensation on his large beer glass. But Gaby can see that his devil’s eyes are laughing.

Luckily, they are in a drinking establishment, and Gaby enjoys one amber lager after another since she cannot enjoy Illya’s plump pink lips and the taste of the underside of his lightly stubbled jaw.

Very soon – and yet somehow not soon enough, this spectacle is going to be etched into Gaby’s retinas like a never-ending, lurid lusty dream – lllya and the mark are laughing and singing together, exchanging embraces and pats on the back like long-time friends. Napoleon is absolutely delighted when they kiss on the mouth, three times, quick and smiling: a perfect display of cordial Slavic camaraderie. Nobody gives them a second glance. 

Gaby cannot stop watching them, and it’s hard to be covert about it.

Napoleon cannot stop watching them.

Illya’s voice carries over, a slightly different pitch, slightly different inflections: Volodya’s voice is smooth, sweeter than honey, and everything about him speaks of warmth and sunshine, and rough tumbles in the hay. Their mark never stood a chance against this kind of onslaught.

When Illya leaves with the mark, Gaby and Napoleon finish their beers while wearing matching dazed expressions, both of them feeling blissful and resentful at the same time. They toss a coin to determine who will tail Illya as backup, and Gaby cannot decide if she won or lost when it’s her who has to return to base without getting even a glimpse of what this Volodya person is like in bed.


	2. sweet hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Gaby Teller gets vaguely jealous about Illya’s past.

Gaby is a little lonely and a little confused, cooped up in a safe-house just off the northern tip of Serangoon Road that has been obligingly arranged for them by the British intelligence for the duration of the mission. She keeps the radio transmitter tuned and the blueprints stacked in neat colour-coded piles while Napoleon lounges in pajamas and files his nails. It has been two hours since Illya has been gone.

Gaby nibbles on jackfruit chips to stave off both boredom and anxiety and keeps thumbing through the file that Waverly’s former men gave the local espionage-and-diplomacy men to give to Gaby, who is currently Waverly’s woman. It’s a slow read because she is not yet fluent with the encryption method used. That’s all right because Illya has been gone for three hours and Gaby needs something to focus on.

Napoleon sings some novelty song off-key and Gaby struggles not to cringe at the stupid words and the stupidity of her own nervous twitching in the armchair just because Illya is off to meet someone in Little India, a KGB contact who must preserve their anonymity. She cannot help wondering who he might be meeting. She cannot help thinking of him grooming himself before going out. She cannot help wondering if the contact is a previous acquaintance, if they are beautiful, if they have common history. All three are likely to be true. Illya has been gone for four hours and Gaby is being stupid like a goose.

Napoleon goes out and comes back with es teler for two. He ends up polishing off both portions because Gaby keeps looking at the fruit cocktail and thinking about somebody’s lips tasting like fruit, and about Illya’s lips tasting like somebody else’s lips. Gaby is a goose. The encrypted file is a slow read. Gaby keeps losing track of the cypher. Gaby keeps thinking about exchanging information and exchanging body fluids. Gaby is getting a little hot under the collar of her dress. She should have eaten the es teler; now that Napoleon is napping he will not go out again. Gaby keeps staring at the radio transmitter. It has been five hours since Illya has been gone.

The file has some previously undisclosed information about Illya’s past and the possible identity of the KGB contact in the Federation of Malaysia. Gaby shakes off the visions of familiar caresses and displays of old affection. Napoleon snores softly. Gaby resolutely shrugs off the thoughts of past liaisons and fond memories. Napoleon mumbles in his sleep. Gaby thinks about forging new bonds and carving new spaces for herself in the lives of others; most deliciously, in the life of Illya. It’s a slow process but Gaby needs something ordinary and human to focus on in her less than ordinary life.

When Illya comes back six hours later, he is put together and armed with a multitude of facts and tip-offs about their current mission objective. His skin smells too fresh and too sweet. His lips are soft and puffy when Gaby kisses him. She doesn’t ask and he doesn’t tell; they wake Napoleon up and make plans for tomorrow.


	3. true colours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Illya is justly worried about getting hit in the face again.

They are sitting in a small café in Biarritz, digging into an early breakfast, when Gaby throws out her hand sharply to snatch the last chocolate croissant from the basket and Illya visibly flinches. Napoleon’s perfectly trimmed eyebrows climb high in his lightly lined forehead. Gaby murders the croissant, unrepentant and aware that she’s getting buttery crumbs on her face. Napoleon will just have to do her makeup all over again. Illya shakes his head and ever-so-slightly pushes his chair away from hers, hunching and mumbling under his nose something like, “Seychas opyat’ vrezhet, znayem, vidali.” He’s ruining her tasty moment so Gaby briskly waves him off and Illya scowls before accepting another piping hot cup of coffee that Napoleon fixes for him. 

Gaby is looking at the breakfast spread and figuring out her next victim when Illya risks assaulting the viennoiserie basket again. Gaby is watching like a hawk.

“Getting ready to hit in the face again?” Illya asks snidely, fingers hovering next to the pain au chocolat.

“Who’s been hitting you in the face, Peril?” Napoleon pipes up immediately, delighted and perhaps a touch envious. He must have entertained quite a few face-hitting fantasies himself.

Illya rolls his eyes and mumbles something, then does his best to disappear under his cap and behind the newspaper. His best is not much in this case.

Napoleon turns to Gaby. There’s fondant in the corner of his mouth. When has he managed to polish off the éclairs? 

She shrugs and steals Napoleon’s unfinished coffee. “Me. Maybe. Sometimes.” The rim of the cup takes like crème chantilly. Those éclairs must have been delicious.

Napoleon snorts and confiscates his cup, fills it to the brim with coffee, and passes it back to Gaby. She waits for him to say something but he just looks her dead in the eye instead – Gaby feels slightly hypnotised - and then proceeds to pull a previously unaccounted for chocolate croissant from underneath his own morning newspaper. Napoleon holds it up imperiously and then swiftly shoves the entire pastry in his smug smirking mouth, maintaining eye contact all the while. 

For all her indignant sputtering, Gaby does not miss the single strangled laugh that Illya attempts to wash out of his mouth with the last dregs of his Napoleon-made coffee.


	4. true love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Gaby and Illya have sex for the first time, and for Illya, it’s a very important first time.

Gaby has known for a while, suspected even longer, but it’s today that feels like eternity. Gaby has been frantic, the weight of the agreement between them has seemed almost crushing. She wants Illya so badly.

Most of it is because she can feel how much he wants her.

They don’t make it until evening. They cannot wait until they can check into the hotel according to the mission schedule. Illya has a key to the apartment Napoleon keeps in Rotterdam under an alias and they do it right there.

Finally.

Now, Gaby’s nails dig into Illya’s biceps and she relishes the groan that escapes him when he clutches at her arse. He is awkward and almost helpless when she rakes her nails across his chest before guiding his flushed, leaking cock inside her. Gaby has all the leverage and Illya’s eyes roll back with the force of sensation as she sets the pace. 

Illya is straining, all muscle and fresh desire, feral growls and hisses coming from his mouth at every hard thrust. Gaby crosses her ankles and digs her heels into the small of his back, driving his movement.

Gaby wants him to come inside her. She wants to feel his lovely long cock spurt when she squeezes him with her pussy. She wants him screaming when he’s shoving into her over and over, and she wants him panting, then gasping, then finally breathless when he slumps against her, completely spent. She can take his crushing weight for a while if it means she can take the feel and taste of him when he lets go with another person for the very first time.

It’s almost painfully exciting, and Gaby struggles to breathe when she comes hard at the first light touch of Illya’s fingers against her clit. He shifts above her, inside her, his every heaving breath shaking her body, but her own orgasm is almost an afterthought, she just wants him ruined, spoiled, spent completely.

She gets exactly what she wants when Illya comes with a startled noise, his face red and his thighs twitching involuntarily between hers, and she strokes him through it, her calloused hands roving over his sweaty back while he weeps and prays into the spilled locks of her hair.  
 


	5. tried and true

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Gaby and Illya inflict property damage but stay whole.

Gaby is not the kind of woman who cowers. She’s not the kind of woman who slinks away in the face of violence and helpless rage. When Illya has a fit, she lets him be. She may leave for a while. But she won’t leave him where and when it counts.

When they make love, it’s vigorous and hard. The more they do it, the less frequent the episodes are, but it’s not a magical remedy. It’s more of a healthy outlet. A coping mechanism. But Illya refuses to talk of it in such terms. It’s a real relationship, that’s what it is. It’s something he’s been missing. It’s something he has to learn.

Even when danger is at its worst, even when there are failures, mistakes, and losses, there’s more to Illya’s life than hell and fury now. He may need to let go of the rage and the guilt the usual way, but he needs his woman more. He needs the woman who decided to make him her man.

When they make love, they thrash rooms, break furniture, and rip sheets. Pillows erupt in a shower of feathers. Down everywhere. Camisoles hanging by a thread. When they make love, the moaning gets so loud it turns into screams, and Gaby’s slippery pussy lips grasp the base of Illya’s cock tightly, sweetly, like the best kind of a vicious vice.

When they make love, they scratch and punch each other. They howl and yowl. When they’re sated, they lie in bed, bruised all over. Bleeding from a dozen surface cuts. But whole on the inside where it counts. 

Gaby is not the kind of woman who recoils from danger or flinches at weakness. She’s not the kind of woman who backs out of an affair because her lover is less than perfect. She’s the kind of woman who keeps her eyes open from the start. 

She’s the kind of woman who watches her back and always remembers that she’s sleeping with the devil.

The devil is dangerous and deadly, not fully in control of himself and too dependent on the yoke of his hellish past and murky present. But this devil, he won’t harm her when and where it counts. 

In the meantime, he can hurt her a little, and she can hurt him right back.

When Gaby and Illya make love, they break glass, smash tables, and make beds collapse. The air crackles around them and the world catches fire, momentarily transformed into their own kind of sweet hell where everything hurts just right.


	6. bide your time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Gaby dominates in the field and Illya takes over in the bedroom.

Trondheim meets them with cool weather and rampant trouble, the strategic medical technology developed by the researchers from St Olav’s University Hospital and UNCLE contractors just about to slip into the wrong hands. The city is big and boisterous, loud and large enough to get lost. They need to keep their cool and focus on the mission. 

Gaby’s cold reason opens doors and failing that, she uses Illya’s death grip to force them open.

The snowfall covers the city and misinformation covers the tracks. 

Gaby feels a chill down her spine as she handles the samples of a deadly fever while Illya handles the extraction team, disposing of the dead bodies while her back is mostly turned. She sees a little. She sees enough.

She concentrates on the transportation case, checking the glass tubes in the grid and closing it to maintain stable temperature. She wants to leave immediately.

They report that they can leave tonight.

They are told they must leave tomorrow.

Snow keeps falling outside the window, soft and shining, and Illya covers Gaby’s shivering body with his own when they crawl under crisp white sheets.

Illya is hot like a furnace, and Gaby’s fingers keep slipping on his sweat-slick skin as she traces his pectorals and his deltoids, maps his defined abdomen and the veins standing out on his forearms. He presses his hips into hers, his lips against Gaby’s: they are sliding against each other and moaning into each other’s mouths.

Illya’s skin is hot and so is his gaze, boring into Gaby as if trying to get through, get deep, get at her deepest, darkest secrets. She arches her back in response, squeezes her breasts against Illya’s hard chest: he is deep inside her, fucking her in powerful thrusts that make Gaby’s breaths turn rough and shallow. She is dizzy and a strange ache spreads through her body from her solar plexus. She feels like a dying star, wet and squelching on his cock over and over, coming and coming, shuddering violently with Illya’s big arms wrapped tight around her.

She is ablaze.

He makes her burn and moan until dawn, but when the day breaks, they leave aboard an UNCLE jet, as cool and put together as ever, and Illya keeps half a step behind as Gaby walks down the aisle with assurance and shakes Waverly’s hand. 

She reports in her usual unflappable manner, calm and composed.


	7. in other words

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Illya gets ready for a honeypot mission.

In Monaco, they have to extract information.

It would be logical to assume that Napoleon Solo is always the best choice to be both the bait and the hook, luring people in and prying for their secrets. But they need to vary their game. They need to use all that they have. And besides, Napoleon Solo, as ‘Vincent Trentham’, has already been seen by all their persons of interest, and therefore must forfeit.

Of course, _Napoleon_ is mildly indignant and slightly disappointed. _Solo_ is a consummate professional and agrees to the only logical solution for the mission. Both of them give Gaby teasing looks and wait for Illya to emerge from the bedroom of the hotel suite while Gaby tunes the trackers that Illya will have to wear.

For a while, Gaby and Napoleon bicker half-heartedly, their minds occupied by the marks’ profiles, the casino layout, the schedule and the objective.

The person who steps out from the bedroom is not the Illya either Gaby or Solo knows. It is not Illya’s usual kind of mask, generic blandness or a Soviet architect or a Yugoslavian official. It’s a sleek, groomed persona, tall and dashing. Illya’s stance and gait are not his own, and while his eyes are off – searching, genuine, inquisitive – the rest of his face is perfectly arranged into a radiant expression of smugness and conviviality that usually graces Napoleon’s visage.

Incidentally, he is wearing the clothes Solo has picked for him. 

It is a queer kind of sight.

It sends a spark through Gaby, the kind that ignites her body from her toes to the tips of her ears. All she can hear is a heavy, almost painful rush of her own blood as Solo leans in and whispers something to her. No doubt something lewd. Or perhaps something surprisingly tender, if one goes by the way he steps closer and fixes Illya’s tie. 

Lust and gentleness, the two things that Gaby feels pulsing heavily in her own chest, are easily read in the way Solo circles around Illya and spends the next half-hour role-playing the mark that Illya will have to seduce later in the evening. Gaby has no qualms about the mission, no doubt that Illya will pull it off, that he will be as skilled and efficient as usual. It is just bizarre to watch Illya right now, and doubly bizarre to watch him with Solo given that today, Illya’s strategy of choice appears to be mirroring Solo’s whims and mannerisms. 

As Gaby finally fixes Illya with the trackers and the wire, she has to admit that there is a certain kind of delicious allure to this affectation, at least for her. She wonders what it is like for Solo – like looking into a magic mirror, seeing a distorted reflection of himself, perhaps? Illya even mimics the inflections of Solo’s voice. His American accent has always been better than his British one.

When Gaby turns to Solo, she sees nothing but delight and amusement; maybe more than a little narcissistic pleasure – Illya is essentially being him tonight, after all, and he paints a gorgeous picture using all of Solo’s tricks. But when they pack and get ready to leave, out of the corner of her eye Gaby catches a hint of wistfulness and maybe longing, and _that_ is Napoleon looking, with a queer kind of carefully suppressed hunger.

In other words, very much like what Gaby feels tonight, watching Illya as he is wearing an approximation of Solo’s face.

He does it beautifully. Their mark is smitten, the information is extracted, and Gaby knows without asking that, in the course of the interminable night, Solo expends just as much energy as she does to maintain his composure and quell the desire to take a bite of something that has not been cooked for him.

It’s all for the mission.

It goes without a hitch.


	8. in the same direction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Gaby and Illya make love with Napoleon in the same room.

They are spending their nights in a little hotel room in Mar del Plata, and Solo goes out for a walk under the grey skies when Gaby and Illya decide to call it a day and curl up together in the tiny bed by the wall. They have an early start tomorrow and Solo doesn’t have to make an appearance until later in the afternoon. Whatever he thinks about, whatever he does when he strolls down the streets without them, Gaby and Illya don’t ask.

They fall asleep when it’s still light, the twilight trembling and transparent and hardly a sound creeping into their tumble-down room.

Gaby blinks awake in the dark and spends a few minutes breathing the cool air and watching the shadows dance. There’s a tree branch hitting the window glass, guided by the insistent wind. The shadows jump over their bed and reach for Solo’s, stretch over his full slack mouth and square jaw, slide over his bare shoulder and muscled arm that rests above the covers, linger at the slight curve of his hip. Asleep, he’s different.

Not more or less beautiful. Just different.

Gaby feels Illya’s warm breath against her neck. His deep breaths are pressing his hard chest into Gaby’s back, a measured rhythm. Very controlled. She gropes about for his hand and squeezes his calloused fingers. Illya squeezes hers back. They lie awake for a while, watching Solo, their breaths synchronized, as if they were about to disarm a bomb.

Solo really is a pretty thing.

They shift their positions, very quietly, combining their strength and flexibility: Gaby lifts her leg and opens up, Illya settles his bulk and holds her, moves his lower body and slides his hot, hard cock deep inside. The tree branch claws at the window and shadows rake greedily over Solo’s sleeping form while Illya and Gaby fuck, chest to back, a hungry back-and-forth with barely a sound. 

Always keep your eyes on the exit. Solo’s bed is by the door. Gaby presses her cheek against the crook of her arm as she meets Illya’s deep thrusts and catalogues every line in Solo’s face that appears different when he’s sound asleep. Illya’s hips piston faster as he chases release; the orgasm is a way out, just out of reach. Gaby’s pleasure is overflowing, looking for escape. 

Illya’s chin is digging into her shoulder, his stubble scraping Gaby’s heated skin, and she knows exactly what he’s watching.

After all, love is not looking at each other but looking in the same direction.


	9. approximation of flight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Gaby has to work alone.

The chandelier bathes the room in thick yellow light and Gaby stands perfectly still, eyes darting between the exit and the window, the first man and the second. She’s left the third one outside the door, choked him and leaned his large, soft body against the wall.

Gaby’s fingers clench and unclench at the sides, a mirror of Illya’s tic.

Her body remembers.

Stretching at the barre, rising on tiptoes, kicking the ground and spinning around. Attitude, arabesque, battement. An approximation of flight. Her body is free in movement, her body obeys the rigid order of choreography. 

Gaby steps back and to the side, circles around the two men who circle around her. The carpet rustles underfoot. A bizarre pas de trois, no questions asked. Completely unlike what she does with Illya and Solo, and yet so similar in essence.

The body remembers.

Lubricating gears, checking the axle, lying under the car until the world fades: mind focused on the task, muscles obeying. Drain hose, pedal linkage, transmission fluid. Her hands roam free and her back arches, one with the task. Her body follows the necessary commands. 

The two strange men advance at her and she cannot confirm their identity. There are no orders to clarify intentions or gather intelligence. Gaby’s brain engages with the situation. The two men are armed. Average strength, mid-thirties. Average height, like her. She makes eye contact, once, twice.

She must engage.

The body remembers.

Breaking little boys’ noses and kicking girls’ shins, stealing their toys and leaving them on the ground, their cutesy dresses torn and covered in dust. Run, run fast, think like a car, be a car, glide, soar. They can’t catch you. Nobody can. Her body is tight, her body is iron, her body is movement: she wants to escape and the body obeys. An approximation of flight. 

Freedom is fleeting, only a few precious moments snatched from life: a fouetté turn, a quick fuck, getting hit and hitting back.

The body remembers.

She swings, she punches, she gropes the heavy-set man’s sides and thighs, grabs his gun and breaks his nose with the butt. Mind focused on the task, body obeying, she lands a kick to the other man’s shin, wrenches the case out of his hand, slams a fist in his solar plexus and watches him fall out of the French window. Glass shards rain down on the asphalt and she runs, runs fast, down the stairs before her mind unlocks and adrenaline drains from her body. The car is at the entrance and she is one with the fine-tuned metal machine, off she goes, she glides, she soars. 

They can’t catch her. Nobody can.


	10. go six feet underground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Napoleon gets hurt and tries to hide his injury.

Solo pays very little attention to Gaby as he gets in the getaway car. His movements are brisk and his tone is clipped. Gaby wastes no time and makes the engine do its best, uses all her considerable skill to put as much distance as possible between them and what is essentially a crime scene.

Solo is sitting ramrod straight in the leather backseat, his wide shoulders in a tight line, and goes though the contents of the metal briefcase. He is apparently convinced that its strategically lifted lid and dull metal glint are enough to distract her from the crimson bloodstain spreading underneath his jacket.

He’s carefully, casually diverting her attention; his voice is even and matter-of-fact as he converses with Illya through the communicator. The car is a smooth, sweet ride, the salon full of familiar smells of leather and petrol. But it only makes the wrongness stand out more.

Gaby can smell Solo’s blood: salt and iron.

Her nerves are quivering and she grits her teeth. The steering wheel is a little stubborn under her hands but it has nothing on Solo’s smug obstinacy. He won’t move an inch. He is constantly downplaying his injuries, keeping mum about old wounds that act up and the burnout that he is obviously suffering from. He never talks about his weak heart, courtesy of Uncle Rudy.

Frankly, Solo usually does his best to pretend that he doesn’t have a heart at all. At least in front of Gaby.

Fingers clenched tight on the steering wheel and her foot on the pedal, Gaby watches Solo’s face in the rear-view mirror.

In the beginning, following the aftermath of the Vinciguerra affair, he had seemed close and approachable. There was a strange kind of familiarity between them, and Gaby never thought of him as anyone but ‘Napoleon’. They orbited around each other with teasing rapport and disregard for personal boundaries, a mockery of domesticity. The man skim-reading the papers in the backseat, however, is a fellow agent, not a friend. It’s Solo, because he wants things to be this way.

Eyes darting between the road and the mirror, Gaby surveys him anxiously, noting everything from the furrow between his dark brows to the way he slumps involuntarily against the backrest and covers it with the rustle of the papers. She is not a fool; she understands that the overly familiar affection between them was a means to an end, a crutch for Solo to get over her betrayal in Italy and, perhaps more importantly, to efface all associations with Uncle Rudy. He teased her like a sister and flirted like he would with any other woman, all of it to burn away any lingering grudges that might affect the work of their UNCLE unit. Solo knows himself very well.

It’s only this certainty regarding Solo’s ultimate self-awareness that ensures that Gaby drives in silence and doesn’t snap and scream, or turn around and slap him. If he were bleeding to death, he’d know and he’d do something. But he’s reading names aloud for Illya’s sake, voice clear if clipped. Therefore, he is not bleeding to death.

But he is bleeding enough. Too much for Gaby’s liking.

She doesn’t want him to bleed or to hurt. She likes him. If Gaby is honest with herself, she wants Napoleon back very much – his casual, almost graceless cheek when they are alone and his disrespect for personal space. Even though she knows it was a tool for him to force himself to like her and to trust her enough to have her cover him in the field without reservations, Gaby found their back-and-forth easy and down-to-earth. She liked his flirting, too. Why is he so stingy with it now? That is something he gives away in spades to others.

Taking a deep breath, Gaby speeds down the road, willing the car to outrun the rush of Solo’s blood. Of course, she knows why. Just like she knew about Illya - that for him, their sexual relationship was the first one that wasn’t about work, or because of work, or for the work. (And isn’t that strange, because where would they be without work? Certainly not together.) Gaby knows about Solo – that for him, _everything_ is about work, because of work, and for the work. ‘Napoleon’ is not someone who is up for grabs, someone who can be had by anyone but Napoleon himself.

Not even by Illya, apparently, for all that Solo eyes him like a particularly succulent dish. All that Illya gets is a brisk update and their current coordinates. Taking a sharp turn, Gaby swallows a bitter chuckle. Look at that, she’s ahead of her Illya. He gets Solo’s confident if slightly tired voice dishing out redundant instructions. Gaby gets crimson droplets of Solo’s blood on the worn brown leather and the faint sheen of sweat on his temples. 

She gets the sharp, salty smell of a bleeding wound.

Gaby curls her lip in contempt and lets Solo indulge. She knows that, were she to say anything, he’d ignore her presumption. So she trusts him to keep it together; they’re almost there anyway. Just a little bit more. 

Solo’s skin is pale grey, the colour of the sky stretching overhead and of Illya’s worried eyes when he meets them at the checkpoint.

The car smells like leather and petrol, like blood and sweat. Gaby breathes a little easier when Illya pulls a folded handkerchief out of his pocket and covers the place where Solo’s jacket is soaked through. Solo covers it with his hand immediately, and Illya puts his larger hand on top of Solo’s, increasing the pressure. 

Illya doesn’t say anything to her, which means the bleeding stops.

They’ll deal with it at the safe-house. Just a little bit more.

Solo doesn’t meet Gaby’s eyes in the rear-view mirror. He likes to keep everything buried deep and it’s not her place to barge in and dig it up. She misses Napoleon’s smile.

But mostly, she just wants him to be all right.


	11. fever all through the night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Napoleon has a fever.

Solo is burning up.

Sickly pallor and sickly flush clash on his face before spreading further down, in ugly blotches over his dark-stubbled jaw and neck, past the sweat-slick hollow between his collar bones and all over his chest, dusted with faintly curling hair. 

Solo has a fever and Illya and Gaby take turns in keeping vigil by his bed. They wipe him down with wet cloths and cover him with blankets that Solo, in half-hearted delirium, insists on kicking off. They keep him hydrated, hold his head up while forcing water in his mouth, sip by gentle sip. They give him medication and light broth, alternating the preferred home remedy of Illya’s mother and the secret recipe of Gaby’s stepfather. Solo can hardly keep down any of it, vomiting profusely and indiscriminately: water, pills, broth, anything goes. They keep a basin by the bed. They keep changing the sheets.

No matter how much they air the room, with Solo’s body safely wrapped in warm covers, the stale smell of sickness lingers. Gaby hates that smell, revoltingly rich with notes of fear and impotent wait, anger and bone-deep fatigue. She doesn’t like that Solo has to sleep in this stench.

But at least they are able to change the bedding frequently, with Illya rolling Solo’s sleep-heavy body, lifting him, while Gaby is smoothing yet another crisp, fresh cotton sheet over the bed. 

At one point, Solo begins coughing, spasming. It looks like a seizure. Illya’s face is calm but his eyes are terrified. He is standing over Solo, whose spine is arched and arms are thrashing uncontrollably, and steps aside as soon as Gaby rushes to Solo’s bedside. He tries to make himself useful but fails until Gaby tells him what to do. Perhaps this brings back memories – the chair, Uncle Rudy, their first time in Italy together. Or perhaps it’s Solo’s feverish mumbling. His voice is hoarse but Gaby can make out words. It’s a song.

If he can serenade, he can certainly pull through.

Waiting for Illya to return with new medication, Gaby wipes Solo’s brow and holds Solo’s hand. His grip is surprisingly steady. 

There are two awkward, horrible minutes when Solo appears to be strangely lucid and talks about Gaby and Illya. Or someone almost like Gaby and Illya. He talks about some two people fighting and fucking and it sounds like an excerpt from a play by Ionesco. Gaby touches his face with her free hand and slides her fingers into his hair, matted with sweat.

When Illya comes back, Solo is mercifully quiet again. He is almost too still, but his chest rises and falls ever so slightly, unhurried, like lazy Mediterranean waves lapping at the shore. 

The night feels long but time runs awfully fast. When Solo’s fever breaks the following day, Gaby could swear that everything happened in the space of a single, dreadful, skipped heartbeat.

Neither she nor Illya have slept a wink.  
 


	12. have mercy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Gaby provides technical support and muses on the ramifications of teamwork.

Narrowing down the field of transmission, Gaby completes the calibration and pushes the device aside. Illya picks it up swiftly, quiet as usual, and ambles towards the hard-backed chair where Solo is sitting, watching the film reels. One wall of the warehouse has been sloppily painted white and now serves as their own private little cinema. Solo has been at it for three days already, watching the footage of Venezuelan diplomats and politicians, of American businessmen and military, of alleged CIA interrogations and the bloody aftermath. 

Solo has been soaking the information up like a sponge, and nothing surprises him. Illya, too, has shown no surprise, neither concerning their briefing nor Solo’s dispassionate concentration. 

Therefore, whatever Gaby feels herself, she makes an effort not to show it. 

Solo’s eyes quickly follow the people on the makeshift screen and his mouth repeats snatches of lip-read conversations. He’s getting ready to slip on a new mask again. Rivers of blood and money are not unchartered territory for him, and Gaby is not hiding on the outskirts of Caracas to be shocked. Her technical acumen is as essential to this mission as Solo’s background and polished confidence act, as vital as Illya’s tactical field support. Therefore, Gaby concentrates on doing what is required, not thinking about how come the things are so twisted that interference is required in the first place.

When Gaby makes an effort, she gets results.

The warehouse has been mostly quiet all the while. Just the muted hum of the rolling reels that Solo is watching and listening to with the headphones, just the sounds of Gaby assembling and adjusting the equipment, an odd clang here and there. Just a hint of Illya’s presence.

Gaby watches Illya now that he’s standing behind Solo, silent and aloof. Very carefully, he attaches the transmitter in the groove between Solo’s tanned shoulder blades, right where the ribbed undershirt bares a stretch of skin. They still have a little more time before Solo needs to leave, before he has to leave them, before he is fully armoured and adorned: knives, lock picks, shoulder holster, ankle holster, shirt, tie, suit. Before he leaves, deadly and dazzling in equal measure. 

Illya stays behind Solo’s uncomfortable chair, his large arms crossed in front of his chest, and watches the slightly trembling footage. Someone smiles around a slim cigarette. Gaby thinks it’s the same man whom she saw messily kill two local officials when she looked up from her workbench earlier this morning. She wipes her fingers on a rag, annoyed by the lingering smell of metal and plastic. 

Solo is dangerous, she thinks, unscrewing a bottle of toxin and dipping a sharp needle inside. Gaby keeps it at arm’s length until it dries enough to be added to Solo’s special kit, alongside the tiny experimental explosives.

Truth be told, both Gaby and Illya want him more than a little, though each in their own way. Which is why to them, Solo is as dangerous as to the corrupt network they’re after.

Those people are under threat from Solo’s glib, gruesome mask while Gaby and Illya are in peril because they have to be side by side with all of Napoleon Solo, his colourful feathers and dirty underbelly, his sharp claws and sharper teeth. Solo is a dangerous animal.

This is nothing but simple fact. An implacable constant in Gaby’s life, a hard truth: just like the fact that she is an excellent mechanic, a hungry lover, an ambitious woman, a pragmatic person.

When she watches Solo leave in the sleek car that completes his image, Gaby makes an effort to find a little place inside her soul where hope might survive. There and only there, she lets herself believe that Solo might have mercy upon them one day.


	13. unable to succour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Gaby and Illya worry about Napoleon and require stress relief.

“It’s a grenade.”

“It’s a smoke bomb.”

Gaby and Illya glare at each other, having barked simultaneously into the communicator that they’re hunched over in Waverly’s office. The video feed died forty-five minutes ago, a consequence of an unfortunate shootout and Solo being chased out of the target building into the streets of Toulon. They’ve been clinging to sound like a lifeline, progressively breaking into cold sweat as Solo’s quips grew increasingly less glib and his breathing increasingly more laboured. So far, Illya has accidentally destroyed the back of Waverly’s chair with his white-knuckled grip and Gaby has screamed herself hoarse, giving Solo urgent instructions and slipping into desperate German. He did get the car to the docks, but he’s in trouble, damn it, and Gaby feels herself sag against Waverly’s mahogany table. Her fingers crumple the city maps spread over the polished surface and Illya looks like he’s about to spontaneously combust.

“It’s a metal canister and I really don’t care either way, I don’t intend to keep it. It is really not the same as having a Cartier fall into your lap-”

The sound dies.

She can imagine it, the fog spreading quickly and covering Solo like a heavy blanket, wrapping around him like he might wrap a sheet around himself and some sweet thing he entertains in his bed: all of his body out of sight, limbs and stupid, stubborn head.

She can imagine it, the fog wrapping around Solo like a shroud.

Gaby cannot believe he is alone out there when they are benched at the HQ, impotent to give Solo anything but meagre tactical support while running blind, and now deaf, and Gaby doesn’t know if Solo can even hear the strangled way Illya calls out his name right now. She doesn’t know which option is preferable, if it’s better if Solo gets to hear the angry panic in Illya’s voice or that he never knows.

The communicator sputters and Gaby imagines fire, blood, explosion and gore.

There’s a mechanical hiss and suddenly the communicator carries a distinct, loud scream. It doesn’t sound anything like Solo.

They don’t know what Solo sounds like right now.

Gaby watches Illya’s ashen face inches away from hers and he watches hers, but they never meet each other’s eyes, already missing something like a limb.

“Well, it _was_ a smoke bomb and no mistake, but thanks for the spare magazines, Peril.” There’s a wheezing cough that sounds like the best kind of music to their ears right now. “Maybe warn me where you fucking put them next time, though.”

Gaby watches the dark gleam of the table surface where she’s ripped a map of Toulon straight in the middle. Illya stumbles towards her heavily and wraps her in a crushingly tight embrace.

They fuck right there, on the table they’d been circling for the past hours like gladiators in the arena, and it’s hellishly hard to concentrate on sensations when they’re dizzy and nauseous from tension and earlier fright. But Solo’s voice carries strongly, sweet sound soaked in gritty background noise with the communicator turned up to maximum volume, and apparently the chatting soothes his nerves because he never shuts up long enough to suggest that he’s expecting an answer from them. 

In any case, anything Gaby and Illya might be able to say they say with their bodies, desperately tugging each other towards the edge as they drink in the familiar cadence of the American’s incessant speech. 

It helps to chase away the horrible ghosts from earlier and they come helplessly within moments of each other, snatching shallow orgasms while Solo gives them a blow-by-blow account of making a drop for the UNCLE contact.


	14. grow gentle towards one another

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Napoleon has to mingle at a party.

Who wants to see a brazen, tawdry kind of overindulgence in sensual pleasures? Who wants to watch a man excessively pursue everything that is lush and lascivious? Who wants to see what dissoluteness looks like under the sharp glare of electric lights, amplified tenfold by glass and crystal, by diamonds and never-ending flutes of champagne?

She does.

Gaby is invisible tonight, ensconced behind the opulent bar in her drab uniform. Catering staff is not entertaining here. By contrast, Solo is their way in, a live wire in every meaning of the word: he brings yet another charge to the already high-strung company, runs a current of excitement one way and, covertly, a current of intelligence the other.

With hardly more than a glance exchanged between them, Gaby and Illya establish that neither of them has seen Solo enjoy reconnaissance more than he does tonight, at this excessively ostentatious American mansion.

Solo is intemperate. Alcohol loosens both his tongue and the tight corset of acquired courtesy and haphazard education that normally cinches his ego. Or rather, his manic kind of self-love, horrendously overblown as is usually the case with men who haven’t been loved enough or haven’t bothered with being even moderately loveable in the first place. Or both.

Anticipation of debauchery apparently quickens his blood: Solo seems to be in his element when he glides among the lewdly swaying figures – across the gleaming inlaid floors – up and down vertiginously lavish gilded staircases. It’s like a devil’s trick, a particular kind of dark magic: the glint in Solo’s eyes and the sharp edge of his vicious grin open all the doors. He blends in perfectly, gleefully acknowledged in the melee and accepted as one of their own, no secret sign or password necessary. 

He speaks the language of boldness and carnality, and he is a consummate communicator.

Who wants to watch a man squander money and attention, watch him waste kisses and casual tokens of affection, watch him gamble with blatant touches and crass promises?

She does.

In the course of the night, Gaby observes him at the party, and she is slightly breathless at the sight for odd reasons that she cannot very well parse. Solo is playing at being exuberantly drunk and he is drunk on exuberance: on rubies covering womens’ décolletés like a grisly sort of rash; on sloppy, languid kissing in plain sight, bodies leaning one against another and sprawling on every surface; on card games in every corner, with players absorbed in the frolicsome delights as they stand around tables, lounge on ottomans, and sit in each other’s laps in messy, libidinous heaps.

Solo puts his hands where he wants to, lets his wine-bright eyes wander wherever he likes. He loses his obscenely expensive tie and bespoke jacket, then finds them both on a semi-nude brunette playing backgammon. In turn, Solo’s fingers find their way into the tight curls of her glossy hair while one of her stockings finds its way into his mouth, the other around his wrists. 

He laughs around the makeshift gag, saliva running down his chin and champagne being poured into his lap. A dozen soft hands with lustrous nails take off his soiled trousers, baring thick thighs covered in stretched lace and tight silk. A dozen hands means a dozen high-heeled pairs of shoes to try, and an even, clacking rhythm as Solo totters on the lacquered surface of an antique table, surrounded by a throng of American maenads and satyrs. Mouth freed, Solo bestows his laughter and his kisses upon them, giving away spit as benediction.

Mixing cocktails behind the bar, Gaby tracks Illya’s progress – his uniform is as plain and unrevealing as Gaby’s, and his official job for the night as straightforward, serving drinks and nothing more, a perfect position to keep an eye on the logistics. No one pays him any attention, not when there are exotic dancers and outlandishly behaving guests. Using his prim disguise to maximum advantage, Illya monitors the exits and the movements of their persons of interest. And, just like Gaby, he also observes Solo’s immoderate outbursts, his keen cries muffled against clean-shaven cheeks and rounded breasts, and his ridiculous attempts to squeeze himself into a risqué blouse shed by a fawn-like blonde currently sitting in his lap.

Gaby and Illya observe everything because they must, they have to; they observe Solo with clinical detachment as part of the mission landscape, a notable landmark; they keep track of him as their partner undercover. 

They observe him as something fascinating and alluring to the eye and to the mind. Out of everything and everyone tonight, Solo is the only object of their intimate, non-professional attention. He is familiar. And being familiar, he is outrageously tempting.

Who wants to watch a speedy descent into inebriation and erotic dissipation?

They do.


	15. wanna get some

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which they dance all night.

They dance all night in a gaudy Californian hotel room, bodies loose with alcohol and fatigue as one song flows into another, Solo’s quick fingers changing the records: ‘Puff, the Magic Dragon’ and ‘Maria Elena’, ‘You Can’t Sit Down’ and ‘If I Had a Hammer’. Gaby tastes the coy smile in the corner of Illya’s mouth and gorges herself on Solo’s generous lips.

The music keeps on playing. ‘He’s So Fine.’

She climbs Illya like a tree, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and her legs around his waist, urging him to spin them around the room. Furniture turns into a bright blur of colours but when Gaby’s grip becomes unsteady Solo slides up to them and props her up, his hard chest solid against her back like a wall that truly spells safety. Gaby laughs when she feels Illya’s arms move and close behind Solo’s back, a vice for two. It’s good.

Another breath, another record. ‘Mean Woman Blues.’ 

She bites Illya’s earlobe a little and chews on his neck a lot while Solo croons something inconsequential against the back of her neck. She wiggles in Illya’s arms, pushes back against Solo’s toned stomach and eggs them on until they exchange sloppy kisses and stumble backwards until the backs of Illya’s calves hit the enormous bed. Isn’t that nice. 

‘It’s All Right.’ 

Gaby is sprawled on top of Illya, exploring his mouth lazily, when Solo swirls to a stop by the bed and Gaby’s hand darts out to draw him towards her. She wants his graceless dancing. She wants his tipsy kissing. She wants him ruffled, cracked, as if being on home soil drags something long-forgotten out of him, a simple, uncultured fellow without a sliver of experience or sophistication. She wants this Solo on top of her and top of Illya, and then she wants the real Solo back. She wants all of them. She wants them all the time.

‘I’m Leaving It Up To You.’ 

Illya hides his face between Gaby’s bare breasts for a few breathless moments before sliding further down, licking the skin of her belly. She sees where his fingers momentarily tangle with Solo’s – it’s on top of her tanned thigh – and after that awkward, reassuring almost handshake Illya cups her sex with his large hand while Solo crawls towards her on all fours, closer and closer until his lips crash against hers. Gaby holds onto him, painted fingernails digging into the flesh of his arms. His skin is all shades of warmth.

‘Blame It On the Bossa Nova.’


	16. stay true

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Illya is away on his own mission and Gaby and Napoleon stay together.

Gaby understands attachment, and she understands that it is dangerous.

She is used to cutting off the strings and to leaving things behind, be those kin, family, woes and wrongs, grudges, shame. She left an entire country behind, an entire life. She knows what it means to break away, how uneasy it is and how little the sensation has to do with freedom: she knows the sting and the lingering ache. 

Gaby knows what it is like to have new strings attached, the puppet master tugging at them oh so expertly, imperceptibly, until there comes an abrupt sharp yank that leaves both mind and body reeling. And it means, say, giving away the identities of two agents, KGB and CIA, brushing it off and marching on, to the merry sound of British drums. 

Living with the strings is a precious skill, and Gaby knows that if she wants to live, she must not let the feeling of connection or regard to get in the way. Tangled, she might slip.

Be sweetly lulled asleep and never wake up.

Gaby understands both the importance and the inherent danger of attachment. It’s a queer kind of tit-for-tat: vulnerability for vulnerability, support for support, affection for affection. In their world, it might tip the scales in a desperate situation and mean that someone – two someones – will do a little more than strictly necessary when the bell tolls, and she shall live even when it is impractical or unprofitable to the puppet masters. Perhaps.

In their world, it might mean that Gaby, too, will one day do more than strictly necessary, more than is allowed for the sake of someone. Two someones. It might mean that Gaby herself, having done something perilously stupid, deemed unreasonable and ultimately unbeneficial to the goals of UNCLE and whoever stands behind it, shrouded in shadow, will end up with her own puppet strings tied around her neck like a noose. A merry yank and she is gone. Perhaps.

Attachment is a haggle, a cheating game. You need others to be attached to you so you are able to use them, so you are safe from them, so you can trust them. You must not grow attached yourself, not _too much_ – so that they are not able to milk you for whatever you are worth, get past all your defenses. But you must force yourself to become attached _just enough_ – so that they believe you, let down their guard, trust you enough to let you in because they believe they are safe. And only then you can trust them and use them, when they know they could use you. It’s a cruel kind of tit-for-tat. 

It’s a knife’s edge: slip a little and you are in way over your head. Attachment is dangerous because it is a game of give and give for the worst kind of gamblers: trading in vulnerabilities and knowing full well it’s all about buying a pig in a poke. If one day it all comes to the worst, will she discover that she lucked out and got two fat pigs? Or is one of them a lean mean cat that will let her bleed out in the gutter? Which one? 

Some days Gaby thinks she knows the answer, tracing the scars on Illya’s body with her kiss-swollen mouth. Some days, she is not so sure.

Will one of them, or both of them, leave her behind one day? Under what circumstances? She wonders when she watches Solo bite at the thick column of Illya’s throat when the two of them stumble out of the shower, relaxed and so squeaky clean that their skin is slippery. The image overlays with vivid memories of them in the field, back to back and coiled tight like springs, filthy. There is dirt on them, blood and grime on their hands and on their conscience. What will they do, each of them?

Some days, watching the gentle roll of Solo’s hips and the soothing way his arms hold Illya still under him, Gaby thinks that she knows the answer. Some days, she traces Solo’s smirk with her fingers, everything slick and smelling strongly of sex. And she is not so sure.

What will _she_ do and for whom? Is she a pig or a cat? Why?

Most days, Gaby does not know.

She, too, is filthy, body and mind.

Gaby knows attachment. It’s an unfair trade. Perhaps it will save Gaby’s life one day, prompt someone to make a foolhardy, desperate decision for her sake. Or perhaps _she_ will have to make that call, and perhaps it will cost Gaby her own life. Or something that – someone who – incongruously, has become worth much more. Attachment is a risk, always, a double-edged sword. 

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

When she sees Illya off on a separate mission, or when she finds him already long gone by the time she is free to come and invade whatever place he currently inhabits, Gaby tries to determine just how strong the fleeting spike of her worry is. When she works some tedious paper trail with Solo, or watches his hands perform magic tricks with a coffee pot in her own kitchen, she tries to establish just how much she misses Illya, and how much she would miss him if he never came back.

Scalding her lips with thick, fragrant coffee, Gaby drinks in the sight of Solo’s smile, sharp like an army knife; the roll of his shoulders under the crisp, expensive cotton of his shirt as he sits down across the table, cat-like and relaxed; his fingers drumming a staccato rhythm on the Formica plastic. Her own heart beats in unison.

She wonders just how far they have gone, both of them: Napoleon, with his endless greed and generosity between the sheets, and Gaby herself, burning and thrumming like an eternal engine, just to carry Illya past the point of rage and self-destruction. 

Some days, she wonders about Napoleon and herself, if either of them has perhaps stepped past some point of no return, and how much hurt it might mean eventually.

From Krakow to Biarritz, from Trondheim to Mar del Plata, a meandering thread kept stretching, pulled taut between Gaby and Illya: mutual benefit and mutual acceptance. Satisfaction. Gaby knows life, and most importantly, she knows what her own life is like now. She knows the path she has taken and what is necessary to keep walking: eyes on the horizon, no looking back, regrets too heavy to carry. So Gaby keeps shedding that burden and leaving her regrets behind; it is a familiar sting, like leaving behind her home, her family, her easy remorse and complicated dreams. The contentment of mutual pleasure and support seems light enough to carry and useful to hold onto. Gaby cares for Illya easily, because it is, ultimately, an easy kind of love to give. Why not? It is practical and pleasurable. 

Gaby is pragmatic and ambitious, and these qualities are too strong to be negated by the reckless hunger that drives her sometimes. She knows herself; she understands lust and gentleness. But what if those are enough to make her trip? To make her slip, and lose cold reason and control when it counts. It has already been touch-and-go so many times.

From Singapore to Monaco, she grew accustomed to the cadence of Napoleon’s speech, to his mannerisms and to his square jaw, to the warm tone of his skin. From Istanbul to Caracas, Gaby grew used to his flippancy and to his brutal sensuality; first, she learned to deal with Napoleon’s insistent displays of familiar affection and then with the functional, selfish ease with which he took what he needed. She watched him try to get to her and stubbornly tried to get to him, until they finally clicked together, their incessant friction smoothing the rough edges, like two well-matched parts of the same mechanism. It was never meant to be easy but their rapport has turned out to be steady and strong, and yes, Gaby gleefully enjoys the hot rush between her legs that Solo’s presence gives her.

It’s like the two of them are different parts of the same chassis, wheels and skids, irrevocably joined to support the same weight and ensure a smooth, safe landing. Some days, when both of them are immersed in their projects, Gaby keeps her eyes averted and her hands busy, and imagines that she can feel Napoleon burn and break beside her.

When it is just the two of them in the soft silence of Gaby’s sparsely equipped kitchen, she stops dissecting her perilous attachments and takes danger as a given. Napoleon’s lips are full, exploring freely. His mouth is hot and bitter.

He always tastes like heat.

Gaby goes to bed with Napoleon, but it is Solo she fucks: it is his well-practiced touch that feels like a brand on her sensitive skin, his sweet smirking mouth against her neck that makes Gaby come undone. It is his chest pressing her full breasts between them. His hair tickles her lightly, sends a zing through her fingers where she caresses his scalp, through her thighs and breasts.

He is familiar, if not completely known. His blue eyes, weary and coldly pale, seem to age Solo’s conventionally handsome face: a single misplaced stroke on a perfect, fashionable painting of unchallenging beauty. And yet they are strangely ageless with their unchangeable, indifferent gleam. Like the last dawn of the world.

Illya is gone but Gaby still falls asleep in a killer’s arms. It is no different than usual.


	17. fate in our hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which they get tired of Illya picking fights and hold him down.

Today has been a mess yet again, a long blur of irritation at Illya, who is never satisfied. He doesn’t like Solo’s methods, he disapproves of Gaby’s technique: even when he is silent, he radiates censure. 

He was fuming in the backseat of the tiny Volkswagen earlier today, changing his ammunition clip and telegraphing his displeasure at the route Gaby had taken and at the amount of guards Solo had left for him to shoot in pursuit. He’s just never satisfied.

(They can never fuck him well enough.)

Solo and Gaby have long understood that it is pointless to try to explain their choices, to argue it out with Illya or to pick a fight so all three of them can let off steam. It doesn’t work.

They just sigh and snap in return, then grin and bear it, then sneak up on Illya and fuck him, long and slow and hard, until all three of them are tired enough to shut up and let it go.

That’s why Gaby is standing behind Illya and running her lightly bruised hand down his arm while Solo blocks him from the front with splayed fingers pressing at the center of Illya’s chest. Illya is halted, as usual, not by the perfunctory display of their partner’s strength but by the avarice in Solo’s blue eyes.

Illya is silent.

She grabs his left wrist and drags it towards her, grazing Illya’s open palm against her lower belly. It’s a hint of a distraction and he only gives a hint of a gasp, but it’s enough: Solo catches him off-guard, pushes Illya with his entire body and Illya is forced to take half a step back, lean back to the right, and there it is – his right wrist in Gaby’s hand, his right wrist over his left wrist. She holds them in her grasp and Illya could break free, of course, shrug her off if he wanted to.

Illya doesn’t want to.

Gaby presses her forehead between Illya’s shoulder blades, breathing in the damp cotton and Illya’s stale sweat. This way, she can feel the slightest twitches of the tiniest muscles under his skin. Illya only looks like an unmovable mountain. Gaby can feel him crumbling inside right now, with Solo’s hand shoved deep in his pants and Solo’s mouth fastened to Illya’s. He makes a hungry sound. They make hungry sounds. 

Gaby feels heat pooling in her belly.

Illya has nothing to say when Solo drops to his knees and sucks his cock. Apparently, that’s the one skill Illya finds beyond reproach. Gaby rubs her face against Illya’s back, catches his shudders and clenches her fingers in a vice around Illya’s wrists, enjoying the hot rush of blood under Illya’s skin as he pants softly, a background noise to all the moaning and groaning Solo does with his mouth full.

They hold Illya trapped between their bodies, first standing, then tangled in a messy heap on the floor, then crawling to bed for one last round: long kisses, slow suction and hard thrusts, until Illya is as settled and content as he ever gets, and Gaby and Solo are tired enough to curl around him and just let it go.

That’s what works.


	18. stay there

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Illya and Gaby have to avoid strangers’ suspicion, but are unable to avoid their own annoyance.

Wheeling the car around a tight curve, Gaby keeps her eyes on the road ahead. She is keeping an appropriate distance between them and the woman they are following, moving neither too fast nor too slow, not too close. Not too far. 

By necessity, all three of them are in the car today, and Gaby does not like it. It is a poor choice to have all agents in the same place at the same time as the mission unfolds. It’s an annoyance, a vulnerability. As a handler, Gaby grips the wheel, keeps her gaze level on the thoroughfare, and estimates the most efficient way to use the two human assets quietly conversing in her backseat. As an agent, she is unimpressed with the orders from above and frustrated with the circumstances that force the three of them to risk and to hurry lest they miss a crucial moment. As a person, Gaby is vexed. 

As an agent, she is not to be deterred. 

The woman’s Le Mans convertible draws to a halt next to a darkened building, old grime obscuring the colours underneath and making the chipped caryatids look as appealing as gargoyles. She steps on the flagstones and walks to the heavy front door. From where Gaby has parked further down the street, they cannot tell who is holding the door half open.

Solo gets out of the car and walks in the other direction with a spring in his step, casual as you please. He will walk around the block, scope out the surroundings. In the meantime, Gaby bends down and rolls, climbs across the front seat and settles in Illya’s lap. The new position offers her a few extra inches, an advantage given the mirrors and the surveillance equipment strategically placed in the car. Illya can stare straight ahead but with the gadgets that Gaby has shaken up Waverly’s budget for, she could almost claim having a better view.

His hands half-heartedly outline the swell of her hips, just enough to suggest a risqué tryst. They don’t bother trying to appear too overwhelmed too soon. This might take a while. Gaby listens to the ticking of Illya’s father’s watch, the rumble of cars passing by and the hint of Solo’s breathing through the communicator in her ear. 

Illya’s fingers slide up to her shoulders and Gaby feels how rough his gun calloused skin is through the flimsy fabric of her sheer blouse. She dips her head so that her hair falls into her face as she pretends to clutch Illya closer and, through her messy fringe, watches the sleek Crysler sliding past them. It stops behind the woman’s Pontiac just as Solo steps around the corner, too far to identify the man and the woman leaving the car – but also too far to be spotted himself. Good enough.

Gaby undulates against Illya’s body, her thighs above his thighs, just as the strange man’s glance sweeps past their car and returns for a lingering moment. Illya pushes his fingers in the hair at the back of her neck, pulling her head just enough to obscure his own face. Gaby stiffens her shoulders and arches her back in quick succession, bounces on his lap in an unmistakeable rhythm and the man looks away, bored.

Their camera has taken excellent shots of him now, en face and in profile. The woman, unfortunately, is not looking their way: she is busy putting away the car keys in her purse and exchanging a few words with the person on the other side of the half-open door. And Solo is not yet close enough for his microphone to pick up any distinct sounds.

Gaby cranes her neck to look into the magnifying mirror hidden in the panelling and clasps Illya’s shoulder while amplifying the volume with her other hand. Still no good. They will have to clear the recording from background noises and try to make out the words at base. The code may be useful.

The man and the woman step inside and the door slams shut behind them just as Solo passes by the convertible and flawlessly drops a cufflink. It rolls down the cobblestones and Solo hurries, almost stumbling, to look for it: half clumsy anger, half coquettish affectation. Illya pretends to kiss Gaby’s cheek with more fervour, and the slide and press of his full lips would normally make her drift languorously. But now, she just watches Solo bug both cars as he walks, half-bent to the ground, trying to spot the silver cufflink: two trackers on each vehicle, and the whole thing barely takes three seconds.

Illya strokes her back unsteadily and settles one hand on the curve of Gaby’s arse as Solo straightens up and fastens the retrieved cufflink while crossing the street. A car slows down to let him pass; from behind the wheel, a blonde in large sunglasses and a wide-brimmed hat turns her head to watch him walk down the other side of the street.

Solo disappears around the corner as instructed. He will be looking for a position in an empty house across the street, several floors up, on the off chance that, with the right kind of equipment and determination, there is something to be seen of the mystery deal through the windows.

Illya and Gaby keeps nuzzling at each other, all unsatisfying touches that do nothing for the frustration and anxiety buzzing underneath the skin. They can both tell that the other is annoyed. It’s all because of the mission, the build-up of irritation and unresolved issues. 

The tension is mounting.

When the first woman finally leaves the house – and drives away in the Crysler – Illya and Gaby are pretending to be sated and spent in the backseat, though in reality, they are as high-strung and far from dozing as they could possibly be. 

The signal is steady and Gaby follows at a considerable distance, far enough to stay undetected, until the blinking dot freezes on the radar. Without a word, Illya climbs out of the car, takes the necessary gear and walks off to make the remaining distance on foot.

Gaby turns around and goes back looking for the Pontiac, or rather, for Solo following the Pontiac in some random forcefully liberated car. 

She grips the wheel, keeps her gaze steady on the road, and suppresses her vague vexation at the way the man from earlier did not look at them too close and at the way Solo did not look at them at all.


	19. too hot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Gaby observes as things are getting heated.

December.

Destination: Sydney. The heat is palpable down under, dry and ruthless, scalding the skin like shame.

Gaby has settled into a new kind of rhythm, mindful of minutes passing by, of the routines her partners bother to keep up. A routine is a signal; its absence is just as much of a signal. The change in the routine is a signal, too.

Day to day, Gaby reads all the signs, the reality around her hypersaturated with information. Her partners keep up their patterns a sign of trust in her and in each other.

(Underneath it all, she worries how much of those patterns is deception, and who are the primary and secondary targets of deceit.)

She observes.

Observation is familiar, it is second nature by now: a reasonable application of her keen instincts. She observes the way Illya exerts control and can counterbalance everything, be it escalation of violence or appropriate tactical measures; the way Solo flaunts his particular experience and expertise, his aptitude for blending in and reaching, seizing, liberating. Their back and forth, their push and pull, the way they work together on a mission and during downtime.

They are still so different. No matter how much they gravitate towards each other, so much of the fundamental differences is bound to remain forever.

Once the plane has landed, they follow the steps, perfectly in sync: Solo is posing as the second pilot, and Illya is a passenger. He wanted to be the pilot but Solo insisted: Illya's cover as an official from Yugoslavia is too precious for the mission, and no one else can pull it off. Not even Solo, well, obviously not Solo, who would buy _him_ in that role? And yet his admission that he _cannot_ do something is not ceding ground but a win, as attested by Illya's mulish silence.

Then they take a car – not a Le Mans convertible, not a sleek taxi, but a sensible, large-sized Australian passenger car with Gaby at the wheel, trading place with their local contact smoothly. He is going back to UNCLE headquarters on that very same plane, as the second pilot. Gaby is going to the first location, eyes on the road, hands on the wheel. She spares a sliver of attention for Illya and Solo bickering in the backseat, reading the map and arguing over the route. 

She leaves them to it: she had memorised the road beforehand for that very reason. Illya insists, voice clipped and posture rigid, even though Gaby can tell that he is unsure of what he is saying; Solo is sure, but he is also wrong. 

Gaby turns on the radio and hums along to _Koi no Bakansu_ while they talk it out.

Having settled and reported, they disperse: Solo has to stage a break-in and Illya obediently tags along at a distance, providing cover. Privately, Gaby believes that this particular office does not require Solo's skills and Illya would have been fine on his own. However, there is no pressing need to engage Solo elsewhere, she can spare him. It is good for them to start the mission by doing something together, with tangible results. So they go, together, and manage on their own.

At the safe-house, Gaby reads _Careful, He Might Hear You_ by Sumner Locke Elliot. Time is slow to pass, like sand squeezing through the narrow part of the hour-glass, pushing itself forth and demanding its due. Solo and Illya return, perfectly on schedule. She watches Solo's face in the mirror, slick and smug yet somehow radiant, and the way Illya trails behind him, shrouded in shadow. They both appear satisfied.

And yet the tension is mounting.

One object is retrieved, and another has to be planted – back and forth, push and pull. Waverly moves them like pieces on a chessboard with the ease of a man who plays a thousand games at once. Gaby follows suit, coordinating their efforts and navigating their way, intent on the most advantageous progress of the operation, and yet it eats at her, the awareness of the fact that the game is way above her level. It is way above their pay grade, too, as Solo is eager to remind, flippant and contemptuous, and for once, Illya's answering smirk feels like a bitter concession and not an objection.

One day flows into another, trust gained and lost, information changing hands. At night, Solo and Illya keep their voices low, but not low enough for the device to be unable to pick up the signal should Gaby wish to truly hear. They fight over trifles, boisterously, and the fervour of the arguments is disproportionate to the importance of the matter. 

The heat burns, but Gaby's limbs feel heavy with more than the heat. They are being difficult on purpose, and she cannot fathom where they muster the energy to keep it up, on top of everything else.

These days, they choose to loathe each other over nothing rather than dredge up anything truly important. But Gaby knows that real hatred is still enmeshed into the fabric of their companionship, along with camaraderie and compassion.

At night, Gaby's skin still feels scalded by the sun, and her thoughts are slow as she listens to the rhythmic thuds in the next room, where Illya pretends to insist, and Solo pretends to listen.

Sometimes, it seems like the situation has escalated beyond all control; that the delicate dynamic of their team has been irrevocably tampered with and there is no going back – only careening towards the end at full speed, explosion imminent. But still, Gaby observes and believes that she can keep hold on the two of them, blunt the edges, seize the initiative.

Gaby is their handler. She can handle it.

She has to be sure of this.


	20. bossa nova

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the games that people play are over.

The orchestra is playing bossa nova and music sluices down Gaby's body like water.

An eerie agitation shakes her as the night blooms in psychedelic colours. There is perspiration beading on Illya's brow as women flock to him on the dance floor, and Solo's merry laughter at the card table grates on Gaby's nerves like sandpaper. She feels raw and alive, nothing but exposed nerves. The soft music has brought all the razor sharp thoughts she carries within her to the forefront, and tonight, Gaby is ablaze.

Yes, blame it on the bossa nova.

They are in Acapulco tonight, and the venue glimmers with a thousand lights. In each, Gaby sees a fleeting reflection of a moment already lived.

From Biarritz to Trondheim, from California to Sydney, they have been overcoming obstacles, building bridges, reaching goals. They have encapsulated the balance of interests represented by UNCLE. Personal favour among agents may be a tactical advantage, long-term cooperation – a strategic goal; but for all their recklessness and spontaneity, they remember that other strategies exist and other allegiances take precedence. 

They belong to each other fully _in the now_ , but _for life_ they belong to whomever owns them. That is what matters. 

(And as the music swells, Gaby selfishly admits to herself that what matters most is staying alive.)

Day to day, it can be easy to avoid such thoughts, to think about the thrill of danger instead, of pain and pleasure. It is easier to think of sex, to chase it as proof of life. As if fucking were a great, potent force with a significance beyond Illya, or Gaby, or Solo, their individual wants and assumptions.

But on a mild, humid night, simultaneously drowning in closeness and lost in a crowd of people, Gaby tastes the truth on the tip of her tongue: all the sensual warmth, all the genuine feeling, all of it is nothing but a tool designed to keep them functional and fit for duty.

It works without fail.

It is easy to get lost in the illusion, to believe that, since their relationship is so efficient and satisfying (so good for making them feel alive and for giving them incentive to treasure each other as they work), then it must be the greatest, grandest thing in the whole world. As if intercourse were a greater mystery than powers that are polar opposites, than purpose and lack thereof, than loyalty and betrayal, than THRUSH and UNCLE. A greater mystery than the ebb and flow of information, the vertiginous rush of technical progress, the sprawling, voracious global economics. A mystery to end all mysteries.

In truth, it does not matter much at all.

Gaby has spent so much of her life oscillating between fear and suspicion, daring and regret. She has a career now, an unthinkable, unspeakable career, and she wears it like a suit of armour. 

Deep down, however, she knows her allegiance to UNCLE – to Waverly – will not protect her if the dreaded moment comes. 

This trade reaches far beyond persons and their personhood. It does not matter who she is, who Illya is, who Solo is. She knows them all too well; it does not matter. They know her, and may even love her now, in a warped kind of way, akin to the love she harbours for them, but it does not matter. They will not ponder much about that love if there ever comes a moment when death is preferable. (Hers or theirs, whatever the strategically sound outcome is.)

And frankly, between one sip of martini and the next, Gaby can admit to herself that neither will she. It would be awfully easy to love a dead person. Convenient.

What abject thoughts on such a lovely night. She blames it on the bossa nova indeed.


End file.
